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Palindromedary ~ I just read that post the other day in response to chuckle8. You are so right. We have to exercise a lot of common sense and discretion when looking at conspiracy theories. Finding the truth is like looking for a needle in a haystack.
You are right also when you say, "Yes, I've heard many, what I would consider very crazy conspiracy theories about 911...space based particle beam weapons that "melted" the WTC buildings, small nuclear bombs in the basements of the WTC buildings...but the information you get at Architects and Engineers for 911 Truth and a number of other similar sites are not dealing in crazy theories. They have the "smoking gun" evidence that has been scientifically analyzed and the results published in a peer-review scientific journal. "
I can only bow my head and say, "Thank you from the bottom of my heart for taking the time to weed out the BS and spoon feed us the cream of the crop of truth."
My hat is off to you, Palindromedary!!
Reply to #12 yesterday.....Palindromedary: As an Independent, what I believe about the Democratic Party is actually pretty straight forward. I believe if they had 60 votes in the Senate and a House majority, then we as a country could move away from the current extreme right, a place I'll refer to as Plutobagger Fascism, and end up somewhere near the middle. I still wouldn't be happy, but the middle at least is a good starting point for real progress towards a government representative of the vast majority and promotion of the general welfare of said majority.
Don't worry about me, I've seen way to much in my almost six decades to be naive about the scoundrels that lurk in both political parties, as I said before, I'm an Independent..... It's been a long week, I'm headin out for some amped up Rock-a-billy!
Hey, It's good to see David Abbot back!
Mark Saulys ~ I've read your post yesterday about the Kennedy secret society speech. I have mixed feeling about your conclusion. In my opinion, there is no public group that can be associated with the secret society JFK was talking about. It has no name. Illuminati, Free Masons, or Skull and Bones are all Red Herrings. "The Conspiracy" or "The Beast" are probably the best descriptions I've heard. Remember he said, "Secret oaths, and secret proceedings..." Stalinists, no! Not to say Stalinists aren't a part of this conspiracy, they just aren't the conspiracy. For that matter it seems obvious to me that Liberals are also a part of this conspiracy. There is no known group that is immune from the "expansion of influence by covet means" of this conspiracy.
In my humble opinion what happens is this: Once someone gains a certain level of influence on their own they are approached by a "conspiracy" representative with an offer they cannot refuse. They are invited to take part in a secret ceremony where they swear a secret oath of obedience to an undisclosed authority that is over the person inviting them to participate. They are told to not worry about that source and say nothing publicly about the arrangement or ask any questions. The bait in this arrangement is a lifetime promise of prosperity for them and their families. Of course they have to follow orders for the rest of their lives. Surrender their rights to free speech and tow the line. Sell their soul if you will. They may even be advised that any deviation from this directive would end the agreement and their lives.
For ambitious poor people such an offer is as irresistible; as, steroids is irresistible to a young athlete. This is why you have a string of strange deaths among wealthy individuals who want no part in this nefarious arrangement--starting with JFK. With this arrangement you cannot pin the blame on any group, any individual, any ideology; and, cannot trust anyone in any position of influence as well.
Just an opinion.
No country, in the history of the world, has been able to borrow 40% of what IT spends and survive!
And that also goes for a house hold, city, county and state!
Palind..y,
Thanks for a great add on to Thom's article. But don't be so pessimistic about doing something. We do have an advocate in the White House, let's use him. If we all send Thom's article to the President, he will know that we "the people" are aware of the situation and that we expect him to do something about it. We can do the same with our senators and congressmen. This is how to start the revolte against the oligarchy. This is where the 99% movement can finally have something to stand for. "The 99% are against the big lie-Austerity!"
I wish I still had trust, respect, and confidence in either of the two parties. Once upon a time, you could assume that the Democrats and Republicans MIGHT be polar opposites of each other. The fact is that the liberal progressive wing of the Democratic Party has been eviscerated! Blue Dog Democrats, mostly from the Bible belt, have marginalized what is left of the progressive movement. Both parties appear to represent the upper 1% that contribute to their campaign coffers, and whose lobbyists ply the halls of Congress.
When the Democrats took control in 2006, I expected some change. Instead what I got was Nancy Pelosi on TV stating (without even being asked) that they would NOT impeach President Bush! This is amazing, considering the fact that congressional leaders did not hesitate spending enormous amounts of time and money investigating President Clinton for impeachment!
Thanks to gerrymandering, progressive liberals like Dennis Kucinich have been driven from congress, leaving only a few to speak out. Unfortunately there is not enough of a majority to vote against the Neo-Con (Neo-Fascist) austerity programs that are coming our way. When you look at both conventions and you see the rich CEO’s like the Koch Bros. and ALEC doing everything they can to undermine what is left of the Republic (thanks in part to the Citizens United ruling by the Supreme Court) you wonder what will be the end game.
We’ve seen the consolidation of the media into fewer hands like Rupert Murdoch, and realize that we are being driven into a corner not of our own choosing. Personally, I doubt that there is anyone left in congress that has enough guts to stop this snowball from rolling to its inevitable conclusion. Certainly an opposing majority does NOT exist! Perhaps both parties are secretly in league with each other, and are more concerned with the Continuity of Government (COG) and the preservation of their own turf, rather than anything good for the American people.
Future generations (if they survive) will look back on this century as not only a failure of resolve on the part of people with conscience, but a turning away from a Constitutional Democratic Republic, to a totalitarian police state, where all power resides in the Executive, and a government that represents the corporate ruling class.
Kend, Palindromedary,
I have replies to your posts on yesterday's blog.
Thank you.
Its no great revelation - we've known the motive for years, but it is certainly a smoking gun. Hopefully it will get wider coverage than just the left-of-center media.
One of these days the preppers/survivalists/rednecks/ will wake up and realize that the government is not coming to take away your guns/rights/benefits - its big business!!!
I can't help but think of Frederick Pohl's 1950s sci-fi novel "The Space Merchants" which is about life in the world governed by corporations rather than governments. At "election" time, the corporation sends down to central casting for 200-300 wanna-bes, then auditions them to become candidates for each office (President, Senators, Reps). In this way, each corporation "owns" its own politicians. Its sadly becoming reality.
We have to get word about this out. What'll happen, I think, is that it'll be one of those buried truths that they succeed in hushing up so that nobody knows about it and everybody who hears about it dismisses it as a wild conspiracy theory.
NAFTA helped WHO in Mexico? Their unemployment so skyrocketed that illegal immigration to the U.S. quadrupled.
Until we end the lobbyist and special interest groups bribing and backing our elected officals so they, the lobbyist can write the laws for there own gain, this problem will now go away. It is to the point that the American people need to have there own lobbyist group just to have half a chance to get a fair shake.And that is why we elect officials to begin with. they should be outlawed altogether and never be allowed to set foot in Washington.There should be a 250 thousand dollar cap on every senate and congress and house campaign and 1 million on the presidential campaign . there also should be only 3 months to campaign for office.That should end a lot of the bought and paid for officals as more quailified people could afford to run for office and there would not be time for these stupid smear campaigns because they would have there hands full trying to win against someone that isnt a life time politician and the playing field would be even. Probably will never happen in my lifetime, but the wealtly have taken over this country and government and it is way past time to take it back and make it fair for everyone and quit being the worlds bully for there wealth too.
Sorry, Mr. Hartmann, there's not the chance of a snowball in hell either wing of The One Party of Two Names will abandon austerity. That's because the Democrats and the Republicans alike are wholly owned subsidiaries of the One Percent, hired to complete and perpetuate the pre-apocalyptic reduction of the world to only two social classes: the One Percent (who own and control everything); the 99 Percent -- all the rest of us -- who are to be reduced to slaves, cannon-fodder and probably the sort of fodder predicted by the film Soylent Green as well. Nor is there any sanctuary: the same hidden agenda motivates the ruling classes everywhere else. The only solution is global revolution -- a close approximation to Trotsky's concept of permanent revolution. But that is rendered forever impossible by the godlike technological superiority already achieved by the One Percent, a condition tantamount to conquest of Earth by the allegedly fictional Borg: "resistance is futile" -- even the resistance expressed by individual acts of existential despair. The resultant future -- the darkest of dark ages that will continue its relentless darkening until our species is extinct -- is why I am thankful I am old, more thankful still my one child did not survive beyond his mother's womb.
As someone whose family comes from the Soviet Union, who has visited the Soviet Union, who was part of the exile community of Eastern Europeans in the U.S., who has known a tremendous amount of defectors from the Eastern Bloc and who remembers and participated in (on the side of the West) the Cold War, I can tell you that Kennedy was, in fact, speaking of International Stalinist (even though Kruschev "destalinized" he arguably retained some essential Stalinist elements) Communism. In any case, he and Bobby declared a close parity between Soviet Communism and the international crime syndicate - or "Mafia" - saying they were both mercilessly brutal and cold blooded "secret societies" who respected might and not right, whose ends justified any means, and so on. I believe them to have been correct.
The great NY Times reporter/writer, Jack Anderson believed that the Mafia killed Kennedy because Sam Gianncana, as a favor for his old friend from his bootlegging days, Joe Kennedy, fixed the 1960 election for JFK in Chicago and then, after he was elected, JFK with RFK came after the Mafia with a great vengeance. The Mafiosos considered this a "doublecross".
The story goes that when the CIA were comissioned by POTUS to assasinate Castro they hired the Mafia to do it - as they often hired private thugs to do their dirt for the sake of deniability. When the Kennedies came after the Mafia, however, the Mafia approached Castro, told him about the plot and offered to kill Kennedy for Castro, instead. Then came Castro's speech in which he said, "It has recently come to my attention that the United States government is trying to have me assasinated. Two can play at that game."
The rest, as they say, is history.
In a competitive society there can be NO ethics in business. Ethics are an impediment to competitiveness, They have to be handed down by government in the form of laws, regulations and taxes. If your competitors are cheating or maiming their workers to save money or gain another advantage then your only choice is to either do the same as your competitor or to turn them in to the government. If the government, as a result of some undue influence of rogues in your industry, either chooses to look the other way or provides only small, minor, meaningless penalties for the violations then ... oh well, guess you'll have to choose the first option, then, or give it up.
Corporate CEOs are forbidden BY LAW to behave ethically. If they do ANYTHING for ANY purpose other than to maximize profits for their shareholders those shareholders can take them to court.
A similar unfortunate piece of power machienery is in place in government. The POTUS, for example, is mandated to be an imperialist. He may like to treat less powerful foreigners more ethically but he is not the president of those foreigners so when there is a conflict between the wishes - legitimate or not - of his constituent public and the needs and well being of foreigners he will have to go with the wishes , however self indulgently frivolous or covetous, of his public rather than the - quite possibly - more legitimate concerns, needs and well being of those foreigners.
Take drone strikes, for example. Drone strikes will continue regardless of the obvious glaring ethical violations they entail for as long as the president believes that the majority of the American public insits that there be no safe haven for Al-Quaeda in Pakistan, ethics be damned. In general, since Viet Nam, the U.S., in its military operations, has been completely willing to - almost gratuitously - visit any number and beyond of civillian casualties upon a foreign population in order to prevent a single casualty of U.S. military personnel. This in deference to the supposed "Viet Nam Syndrome" that would cause the public to freak out if ANY casualties are sustained by the U.S. military in an operation.
That's interesting because during the Viet Nam War the U.S. military encouraged almost unlimited Viet Namese civillian casualties as they measured success by body count. So ultimately the American public was outraged and upset about U.S. military casualties in Viet Nam but not by the Viet Namese civillian casualties that were at least 20 x the former.
Thus our problems are more systemic rather than just being a matter of the wrong people in charge with the wrong policies.
That's right, illegal immigrants are not the problem. If you want to point a finger and reprimand then you have to look at those that are skirting the laws and employing them. It's a ridiculousnotion to want to reprimand the little guy for what the big guy does. Of course that's one of the fundemental differences between liberals and conservatives -- the rich/powerful are to blame or the poor/weak are to blame.
What you describe should be done with West Fertilizer is very much what Thom describes as the death penalty for corps in the 1890s.
It ought to be brought out that this is no new tactic- in the past we just didn't want to believe it.
This anyone can determine- the largest polio epidemics occurred in the United States AFTER Eli Lilly secured the patent for the Salk vaccine. This meant the CIA stirring up a lot of trouble in India and Pakistan over Eli Lilly's acquisition of thousands of Sacred Rhesus Monkeys Jonas Salk required for production of his vaccine.
It was argued that the United States should maintain control of the vaccine to protect against black markets.
So, after reading about how this multibillionaire was spending big bucks trying to destroy Social Security and other social programs...I was shocked to read a Wikipedia piece on him:
"On August 4, 2010, it was announced that he had signed "The Giving Pledge." He was one of 40 billionaires, led by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, who agreed to give half their wealth to charity.[13]" Yes, but did he actually do it?
"In 2011 Peterson contributed $458 million of his personal wealth to cast Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and various safety net programs that aid the poor as in a state of crisis, as well as needing dramatic cuts.[14]"
Doesn't sound like a very evil man does it? What gives?
Does this sound like a man who is trying to destroy Social Security?
Has this guy paid big bucks to some PR firm to get these things said about him? Is all of this true? But before we get all gushy over such an image of beneficence...would it not be a good idea to pin it down so we know what it is really all about? Ideas to consider:
1. The guy is really not so bad after all..I mean anyone who manages to get a creator of "Sesame Street" to marry him after several other failed marriages can't be all bad...right?
2. The guy is a cunning and manipulative capitalist swine who knows how to play people and work them so that, while he is ripping them off, he gives a little back to show he is really a swell guy after all. That's part of PR...creating the illusion you are someone whom you are not.
3. On the other hand...why not just keep all those dollars..and bequeath them to the heirs...he's got something like 5 children from previous marriages. But then, like the hydra...you cut off one head and many others emerge.
That is one of the big problems with inheritance.. especially inheritance of lots of money. Your worthless, spoiled brats who have always had a life of leisure and opulence are destined to spread out and continue the exploitation of others just like the parents have done...which is usually not the hydra's problem but a problem for anyone getting in the hydra's path.
They send them to the all of the top and very expensive schools to learn how to rip people off.** But oftentimes, parents/children get alienated and the parent decides to take alternative courses to the traditional custom of leaving all their wealth to their children.
I've read that there is a very wealthy person in Australia that is going that route....with an attitude of forcing their spoiled brat children to pick themselves up by their own bootstraps.
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** And this is part of the reason why R&R let their guard down and gave their spread sheet data to a grad school student from UMass Amherst. They probably figured (pun intended) that the student would not only be on their side but also that he probably wouldn't catch the errors or go public with them.
There are a million E-mail addresses at the Security and Exchange - what one should be used for this complaint! A small stockholder and American citizen who is tired of our country being ruled by Corporatists!
It is known fact that the majority of this money is going to the Republicans - why do you think that so many are against it's implementation! Plain and simple!
R&R need to go into hiding for a while...take some long term R&R.
Well, thank goodness for UMass-Amherst grad student Thomas Herndon who discovered the error in the Reinhart-Rogoff paper and thoroughly debunked those right-wing scamsters.
Now can we all get our Social Security and other social programs BACK?!!!
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"It was interesting that when other economists who were not able to replicate the results of Reinhart and Rogoff asked to see the spreadsheets that contained their analysis, their requests were turned down.** But when Herndon, who was enrolled in a course that required students to do a term paper that replicated other people’s papers, also failed in this task and asked for access, they granted it to him. Perhaps they felt that a mere graduate student was no threat to them. This whole episode illustrates the importance of transparency in academic work. You have to give other people enough information to enable them to check your work.
What I learned that was new from the Colbert segment was that the Reinhart-Rogoff paper was never subjected to peer-review. It was what is called a ‘working paper’, circulated among peers and not published in a journal. Why would such an unchecked document have such clout? Because it said what powerful people wanted to hear.
Will this revelation change anything? I don’t think so. When you have the oligarchy and its media lackeys and servants in the political and academic classes strongly pushing an agenda, they do not let facts get in the way. Reinhart and Rogoff were useful to the oligarchy in getting this train going. Now that it is barreling along, their shoddy work will be ignored and new reasons will be concocted to justify the same policies."
http://freethoughtblogs.com/singham/2013/04/25/further-revelations-on-th...
** This is kind of like when NIST wouldn't let people see their data for their computer modeling of the collapse of the WTC buildings. When you have something to hide...you hide the data.
But another paper that was openly published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, publishing their data, was/is being ignored by a lot of people...especially rich and powerful people that have a lot to lose if you find out the truth.
http://www.benthamscience.com/open/tocpj/articles/V002/7TOCPJ.htm
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Be sure to watch Thomas Herndon being interviewed on The Colbert Report...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fATXeLPG3cE
The Twain Report
All The News That Mark Twain Says He Would Report If He Was Alive Today
4-24-2013
The George Bush Memorial Library (See photo below) has opened. The lack of fanfare is surprising when you consider that Bush was without question our most literaryness president, (as well as being quite the little decider). Holding a very impressive collection for a library in Texas, the Bush Memorial library is comprised of both a children's book about a goat, and book II of the 1988 Encyclopedia Britannica (Bevis to Butthead), both with many pages torn out. The size of the book collection forced the library to maintain a somewhat smaller magazine collection, which is comprised of a copy of a 1950 Montgomery Ward catalog, also with many pages torn out. The decorating scheme is early pioneer, with several corncobs next to the only seat, and a sign in crayon saying, "We aim to please. You aim too, please. This means you, George."
DAnnemarc: You're welcome...and thank you for reading all my posts and actually checking out my links. Yes, I know what you mean about Eisenhower...one of those links seemed to be saying that Eisenhower was itching to invade Cuba for political reasons...Somehow, since Eisenhower ratted on the Military Industrial Complex, warning the people about them, I don't think he was also willing to invade Cuba just for political or self-serving reasons. I think the people behind all of that push to invade Cuba was the Military Industrial Complex who tried to manipulate Presidents and other politicians..all of them..and when they couldn't manipulate them..they assassinated them.
It's a Lie Bury - as in burying (or attempting to) the LIES of his administration. Revisionist history at its best.
I'm not considering Imagration reform...Look man just because I am from America doesn't mean I support the policies or actions of the government. That being said I am not anti immagrant and I do not support deporting those that have grown up here and are law abiding and tax paying contributors. Illegal Immagrants are not the problem...The problem is for the last 30 years we have allowed Corporations to hijack the Government away from The People, and write and push policies that undermine the Constitution and diminish our Civil Liberties.
The first Immagrants, are who this country was founded (stolen) by. Before a boat of Britts infested this land, The native Indians were interacting with the Spanish for several hundred years.